from pasir mas to japan. this is where i keep a record of my life, my experiences, my thoughts, my rants and my movie reviews! don't take it too seriously, because i won't! this is also the place where i could practice my deteriorating english, although i also write in malay, japanese and even a bit of kelantanese!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

I woke up in the morning feeling refreshed; it IS true that a good night's sleep could really cure a bad night's outing.

Turned on the switch to see what's on the tube.

I was shocked by the news of the bad economy: another 85000 Japanese outsource workers were fired! Man, why now? Am I going to be fine next year when I start working? A cloud of anxiousness bogs my mind; this feeling really sucks.

I was again shocked by the next news. I was not only shocked, but also angry, sad, frustrated and confused: Israeli army has commenced an aerial assault on Gaza by bombing them with weapons of mass destruction targeting Hamas, killing innocent civilians in the process. I fully understood the complicated issues between Israel-Palestine, but slaughtering innocent civilians will never solve the problem.

Each innocent civilian they kill makes 10 more suicide bombers.

I pray for the safety of all the peaceful Palestinians and Israelis in this never-ending conflict, may GOD (whichever god you prefer) protect you and your family.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

The reason why we decided to stop at Tokyo before going further south is something so simple.

No, it's not for anything hentai or sick or disgusting, that you might have thought I normally would do.

It's simply to re-visit Ekoda and ISI.

Ekoda is a small town in Nerima, Tokyo where I spent 1 year living with my PPKTJ friends while we took advanced Japanese language courses in ISI (International Student's Institute) in Shinjuku.

Although it was a very short period of time (Spring 2003 to Spring 2004), it was fully stuffed with major memories that molded and help build the current me.

Living by my own in a foreign country for the first time, I've learned and experienced a lot of 初体験 (hatsutaiken - first time experience).

We took the morning train on the Yamanote Line and stopped at Shin-Okubo, just like we used to do everyday going to school 5 years ago.

Before proceeding to ISI, we went to this newly opened Pakistani restaurant near the station for breakfast @ lunch; the mutton biryani there was terrific!

With our belly full, we start tracing our steps to the Japanese language school.

As we were approaching a junction that leads to ISI, I noticed the clinic across the street; the first clinic that I went to in Japan. Why is this clinic so special that I have to stop to take a picture, and then blog about it?

I remember it quite vividly. I caught a terrible flu just weeks after I first landed in Japan, and my class teacher (Ishitobi Sensei) advised me to go to the nearest clinic, so I followed her advice.

I got into the clinic, and asked to see the doctor to fix me up. The nurse immediately brought me into this room inside the clinic, asked me to lie down, and then she told me that she would ask me a few questions first while waiting for the doctor.

I was really sick, and I remember having a very bad headache and I was really tired and my shoulder suffers from stiffness, so I address my uncomfortableness to the nurse.

Upon hearing my complaint, the nurse in her pink nurse uniform, offered to massage my head.

Suffice to say that it was a good enough head massage; that I'm writing about it 5 years later. She even massaged my shoulder. I remembered having a boner right after she finished.

I didn't know why, but I didn't get to see the doctor. I don't really understand why, but the nurse gave me some pills and I was felt much better immediately and my flu were gone the next morning.

I think this is how I got my nurse fetish.

When you’re sick, you’re bound to be weak and helpless. In those (rare) weak moments, there comes a pretty and kind nurse in her clean costume, with her soft voice, treating you very kindly and with a genuine smile on her face; you felt like you’re being taken good care of and someone actually cared about your well being. You felt like you’re being saved by a gentle person with a pure heart. This is how nurse fetishes started. So my advice to women out there: if your man is sick, take a good care of him, because he might be a nurse fetish too. He will adore you for it later, I guarantee it!

Look at the picture above.

I'm standing in front of a rice-trading store; that used to be a small grocery store back during those ISI days.

Whenever I went to school, I never miss stopping at this grocery store first to buy my breakfast: a simple vanilla + chocolate flavored bread.

Being the strict Muslim that I am, I only bought the same bread every morning, because other bread sold in the store contained some form of ingredients that might be haram (considered forbidden in Islam's teachings).

My other Muslim friends also made it a daily habit to buy the same bread from the same store, so the owner of the store had to radically increase their stock to meet demands.

The problem with this is, when it’s the holiday season, the now large bread stock went to waste because the customers (us) didn’t come and bought those breads like we used to.

I wonder though why they went under and exclusively sells rice now.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

ISI is located just about 100 meters from the store.

Visiting the school for the first time in 5 years, nostalgic memories were running through my mind.

Being there reminded of the crazy morning rush, the classes that we attended, our kind Japanese teachers etc.

I’m so glad that we did this.

We also stopped at the security guard’s office for a while to have a little chat, and of course the permit to take a look around the property.

The security guard was a really nice guy, a student trying to get into medical studies. He was actually studying for the entrance exam (20th of January 2009) when we went to his cubicle to say hi.

We took some photos around the place and when it’s time to go, we ask the security guard to be photographed with us in front of the school. If I’m not mistaken, his name is Hasebe, from Iwate Prefecture. I hope he pass his entrance exam and finally fulfill his dreams of becoming a medical professional.

After the short visit to ISI, we boarded the train to Ekoda through the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line.

It is getting dark already so we rushed to visit places that matters.

We went straight to Rikko Kaikan (some kind of a dormitory), the place we used to live in 5 years ago. Each and every Malaysian student doing the same Japanese language program used to live here; and we live next to each other, so cook groups were created and we take turn to cook for each other.

This is where I find out that the only meal that I could prepare is the mighty KARI AYAM.

Pic above is the common kitchen of the kaikan. It still looks and smells like shit, except we had it worse than this.

After visiting the kaikan, we took the long route to the Eki.

On the way, we passed a video rental store that basically introduced me to Maria Ozawa, bukkake, hentai anime and all the other educational contents that awesome Japan has to offer.

This is the place where I used to do most of my groceries. Their veggies were cheap!